A few days ago, this video reminded me of the Game of Life.
Although vaguely familiar with the concept, I had never truly taken time to think about it, now I have a hard time stopping. So, as I was experimenting with Telex, Automattic AI agent to create WordPress blocks, I couldn’t resist the temptation to see if I could have the game on my blog. Here’s the prompt I used:
Create a WordPress block that implements Conway’s Game of Life with a 100×100 cell grid and where edges wrap around. In the editor, display the full interactive game with grid visualization, zoom controls (in, out, reset), play/pause button, reset button, and clickable cells to toggle alive/dead states. On the frontend, render the identical interactive game experience. Use canvas or CSS grid for smooth performance with the large grid. Include zoom levels from 25% to 200%. Implement proper cell state management for the wraparound edges. Add visual indicators for alive cells (filled squares) and dead cells (empty squares).
The first draft worked just fine, but wasn’t properly centered, so a second prompt was necessary:
Can you change the block so that the space used by the grid is square and the grid fills it percisely at a 100% zoom level?
(Yes, I made a typo, but I decided to leave it here as that’s what I sent to the AI).
This is the result, you can play with it, have fun :)
I don’t know if we’ll ever have AGI, or even if we should pursue that concept. What I know is that even if progress stopped today, the fact that I could get this block written for me by a machine in a few minutes, and without having to write a line of code is already fantastic.
You can get the block, remix it, or play with it in Telex. You can also build any block you want there. If you do, let me know how it goes!
Leave a reply